HOLY STING

OK..

So I have a good Sting story.

Basically, on another occasion in which I was earwigging Lauren Laverne, she was saying that he did an acoustic set for The Culture Show, much like the others I've witnessed and reported on in my amidst these very pages.

So, being the new age kind of guy that he is, Sting had to get the right and indulgent gear to perform this song, and in this case the right and indulgent gear was deemed to be a Lute.

For those of you who might not have come across a Lute before, it's basically a small guitar like instrument as used in 'ye olde england'. Imagine, Monty Pythons The Holy Grail, think of the minstrels that accompany Brave Sir Robin - one was most likely clasping and gently plucking a Lute...

Now, this in itself is pretty far off the mark. Rock stars and Lutes shouldn't really mix...Folk stars maybe, but not rock stars NO!..I mean Bob Dylan could maybe get away with it, but no-one else and certainly not Sting..

Anyway, Laverne said she was doing the intro with him and there was a delay because the cameraman wasn't happy or the lights were wrong. She turned to see what the problem was and by the time she'd turned back to Sting, he 'd hoisted his leg up in the air above his head like some kind of yogic god!

Now I've nothing against Lutes or Yogic Positions, but just imagine this: A studio full of people, and at the focus of it is Sting - Lute in one hand and this fucking extended leg in the other, toes pointed skywards as if he were divining for rain...

What a picture!

The bidding war the tabloids would have indulged in for a slice of it, would have been epic and extremely lucrative...Too bad no-one had a camera handy...

CLASSIC ALBUM REVIEW :::: AIR - MOON SAFARI

One of the many things that makes music great, at least in the mind of the individual, is the time and place of it's finding and the memories it evokes of that time and place.

For me, Air's Moon Safari is resplendent with such memories: It reminds me of a whole bunch of people. It was one of the first albums I copied onto a CDR, then again onto mp3. It reminds me of the time I left a ring on the cooker on for 4 days and returned to find that the house hadn't burnt down….

But this LP being the key to memory cab files isn't the reason I rate it so highly. I rate it so highly because it's a very, very good record.

Moon Safari is a tranquil sea of peace and harmony the like of which Bono might be able to install on Planet Earth if only he took his sunglasses off. Tracks like Remember & La Femme D'Argent are pure dreamtime bliss rooted in the soil. They're both steady and reliable. In fact they sound almost agricultural, but beautifully human. There's melancholy, heartbreak, stomp, pop and feeling and you can't see the seems…

So many ambient records try oh so hard to define some kind of state of electronic bliss, yet they nearly all fail miserably. Sure they're full of gentle synth washes, blurpy blips and smooth vocals drenched in reverb, but few conjure up much other than chill out rooms in nightclubs or the strange world of a lazy robot party..

Much like The KLFs Chill Out, Moon Safari goes for the jugular without thinking about drugs or nightclubs. Moon Safari is like true and proper ambience; like a summer Sunday dreaming in the garden with acoustic instruments and a radio and birds and…

It's a classic and since emerging from the Brit Pop drenched late 1990s Moon Safari has lounged alone on Tranquillity Island. And since then no leaky ships have even come close…

ALBUM REVIEW DOUBLE BILL ::: JAMES DEAN BRADFIELD & NICKY WIRE SOLO LPS

It’s difficult to be nasty about a band who’ve introduced you to a whole host of thinkers, writers and misfits. I’ve therefore always felt duty bound to speak well of The Manic Street Preachers - period. This unbridled and rather foolish loyalty doesn’t however include solo projects….

According to Nicky Wire – He Killed the Zeitgeist…I’m not so sure he did, and neither am I sure this LP is any good.

Upon pressing play, the first noticeable aspect here is the vocals – To be blunt, they’re duff. Like Christina Aguilera, Nicky Wire seems unable to hold onto one note and this together with the general tunelessness of the voice makes this LP become tedious very quickly.

If the music behind was better, this could be forgivable, but the tunes on Zeitgeist are also stripped down and unsophisticated - The sound is clangy, jagged and not particularly innovative or well done.

Call me conservative, but unless it’s brilliantly executed, such as is The Manics The Holy Bible, music has to offer some kind of hope and/or joy to get my vote and this record offers neither. More accurately, the whole tone of the project makes me think of the Sid Vicious solo record: a rather negative and pointless affair, especially when in this case, it comes from a middle aged man living in a wealthy retirement ghetto in the countryside...

So, if you’re feeling fucked up and bad about the world and like it that way get yourself a copy straight away, otherwise don’t bother.

Unlike I Killed The Zeitgeist, The Great Western by Manics demure, yet hugely talented and undervalued front man James Dean Bradfield has the same epic, thick musical warmth that defined the Manics finest stadium moments. So much so, that if it this LP said Manic Street Preachers on the cover you wouldn’t feel like you’d been ripped off.

Though at times this love of the string ‘whoosh’ and the big symphonic chorus makes the record sound a little like a collection of car adverts, when executed well (That’s no way to tell a lie and Bad Boys and Painkillers being just 2 examples) such music is grand, and just the sort of thing to sing whilst marching around the house of a morning trying to get oneself into an upbeat and indefatigueable mood with which to tackle the day….

Perhaps the biggest surprise with The Great Western is that lyrically it’s also very good. In fact, I’d say it’s a good deal better than Wires offerings, which is odd because lyrics were always said to be Nicky and Richeys domain.

So, to conclude, James DB is (for once) a lofty head and shoulders above Wire here. Indeed, hearing these two solo projects, side by side, makes one realise just how fucked the Manics would have been without James Dean Bradfields musical ability.

Clever political lyrics are one thing, but without Bradfields musical nouse and love of ELO, The Manics would have been a whole different proposition…

Currently listening : Great Western By James Dean Bradfield Release date: By 27 July, 2006

14:41 - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Tommy

I think you're spot on-whilst Nicky & Richey were always putting the revlon in rhetoric and spraying some pretty profound graffiti along the way; a massive chunk of the Manics sucsess rested on the understated but riffola heavy jukebox charm of James. His sorrow-filled sweet soul voice never gets the credit it deserves either.I always saw him as the musical glue that held the whole thing together-look how clumsily some of those lyrics juxtapose with his musical melodies...without him the Manics undoubtably would have been the next Birdland.. The trouble with solo projects is in the inherent chemistry that works within the group dynamic. If you remove one piece, something is lost. Look at the recent(ish) solo offerings from messers Barat & Doherty-Dirty Pretty Things are tight, professional and occasionally profound-but there's a flatness & workmanlike element that stunts it from a place in your heart. Babyshambles 'Down In Albion' on the other hand had heartfelt Pentonville-fuelled poetry abound, but never came within a country mile of a decent tune.(NME likened it to a masterpiece that had been dropped,shattered and then pieced back together-I think maybe they were referring to Pete) This is certainly true in these Manics 'side projects' (from the group that said they'd never stoop to such a rockstar-ish vanity )-on one hand you have James DB's love of classic rock,Goal of the Month backing, Coca Cola ad soundtracks, and on the other we have Nicky's sub C86 Bedroom punk .The two together have been awesome, but apart neither really work for me. James's offering is polished but bland,whilst Nicky's is woefully amatuerish-fine and dandy if you're a teenage leopard print amphetamine Gazelle, but a little sad if you're an educated,paunched middle aged millionaire. Returning to the scene of ones greatest triumphs shorn of the hardship & naivety that fuelled them is always a recipe for disaster and I have to say that I found Nicky's effort cringeworthy ( the low being the bit when he leers, in some half cocked ejaculation 'ooooh baby!') All of this is really sad when, like your good self, hold the Manics responisble for opening my eyes to a whole sylabus of writers,music,artists & thinkers-and making some damn fine pop music along the way. Generation Terrorists taught me more than five wasted,shit kicking years at high school ever did..maybe new group effort 'Banish The Tigers' can pull things round, but my expectations are low... Posted by Tommy on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 at 11:09 [Remove] [Reply to this]

REVIEW: BRYAN FERRY AND MAXIMO PARK @ THE CULTURE SHOW

After taking 2 weeks away working on other projects, I returned to the audience of the Culture Show to see Bryan Ferry and Maximo Park play one song apiece...

I didn't and still don't know anything much about either.

Obviously Ferry was and is now back in Roxy Music and he almost married Jerry Hall, but his and Roxys music has never come my way previously. Meanwhile, Maximo Park have always struck me as band to avoid – In short and rather mean terms, a nothing band that will be as forgotten in 30 years time as will be the MS Napoli running adrift on the shores of Dorset and shedding it's cargo…

Ferry was first on and he was pretty much as I expected: aloof and distant, yet polite and composed. He wandered around with his head in the clouds, in his world,

thinking……

He performed his piece well 3 times for the cameras and then wandered off with his head still in the clouds, not really connecting with anyone much as far as I could make out - at least on any kind of emotional level. Regardless I felt I liked him and the tune he did was decently performed, though most interesting for the guitar work and the lyrics, written by Bob Dylan.

Maximo Park were much as I expected: Lovely boys, playing to their honest best but producing absolutely nothing remarkable or exciting. I'm willing to bet that they have lots of friends and a canny sense of humour, but they didn't touch me at all.

So, there we go: One of the briefest and certainly one of the more dour reviews I've done thus far..

To do your own, watch the BBC 2s The Culture Show this Saturday